EIGHTY-SIX
ONCE UPON A time, the letter Z was my favorite.
It was peaceful sleep.
It was tigers and flamingos and butterfly exhibits.
It was lemon zest and sugar on the hottest summer days.
It was zebras in the Serengeti, and too many girls named Zoe because the Greeks said the word meant life.
Now, Z is the opposite of life.
It is zeal taken too far.
It is Zero Day, lives lost and lost liveliness.
It is Zhornov, and the other four kingpins who’ve forgotten they are flesh and blood, dust to dust.
What will it mean tomorrow?
EIGHTY-SEVEN
SENSE-ALTERED OR NOT, my father would not have sent us on a death mission. I’m not as concerned about Pellegrin—or myself, for that matter—going deep into the habitat as I am about being discovered as an unaltered through the video feed. A mistake like that would wreck what little chance we have at completing the transfer; hopefully they’ll settle on Lonan’s perspective and stay there.
Pellegrin checks his watch. “Three minutes to go. Sixty seconds max, then get back in formation.”
Phoenix rests, arms folded over his knees and head on his arms, while Cass paces the narrow tube just inside the iron doors. We’re all quiet, even though we don’t have to be, not while we aren’t being watched. It isn’t until Lonan wraps both of his arms around me that I realize how tense I am. I am fire, frozen.
He tips my face up toward his, sending all the tears I’ve held back just enough out of balance. More than a few slip out. “You didn’t do it?” His voice is barely louder than a whisper.
I shake my head, blink until the tears stop.
He pulls me in close and kisses the top of my head, tucks the forever-wayward pieces of hair behind my ears. “You will,” he says. “This isn’t over. You will.”
I want to believe him. But I know more than anyone that hope and reality don’t intersect just because you want them to.
Pellegrin’s watch beeps. I should pull away, focus on looking unfocused—if they start watching now, through Lonan, all they’ll see is my hair. It’s so hard to let go, though. Our best chance at the transfer is behind us, and it makes the future feel entirely too thin.
Lonan is the first to break. Pellegrin’s hand on his back makes me feel slightly better, that Lonan wanted to stay wrapped up in me as long as he could get away with it. But now we are back to bleak, back to standing at attention with even spaces between us. Back to this unfortunate reality.
“Here we go,” Pellegrin says under his breath. “Follow the yellow stripes—green, red, blue, and violet are identical branches, but they aren’t as finished as yellow. It’s only a forty-minute demo, enough to see a sample dwelling environment, as well as the aquaponics and virtual world chambers. Even if you’re not sure where to go, just walk confidently—Zhornov hasn’t actually been down here yet, since he hasn’t had the procedure. Whatever you show him, he’ll spin it, but let’s hope he doesn’t have to.”
Now would be an excellent time to have my father in his office, directing our every move. All my melted tension becomes brittle again as I think of Ava, of what she did to him, of how she ruined everything. It should have been simple: get in, get out, get back to Dr. Marieke.
Perhaps it should be reassuring that after years of all things complicated, hopeless skepticism doesn’t yet rule me. Right now, I only feel unprepared.
Go.
It is more breath than spoken word, flame to a fuse. Lonan leads the way, with Cass and Phoenix after, Pellegrin and me at the rear. Our positions are strategic. If I am at the back, perhaps they will default to Phoenix or Cass for perspective if Lonan’s isn’t enough.
We pass from our holding tube into relative darkness, dim purple light against metal walls. This portion of the walkway is every bit as wide as the first, and yet it is stifling, claustrophobic without the illusion of space offered by ocean-view walls. Neon stripes, all the colors Pellegrin mentioned, line floor and ceiling in parallel. They lead us down and around a steep, sharp curve, until I’m certain we’ve done a one-eighty. When it levels out, we spill into a sort of vestibule, a circular chamber where the walls are clear again, and less imposing.
Five tunnels of varying steepness shoot off straight ahead—an upside-down V, with our yellow passageway at the apex. Violet and green must be the habitat’s midlevel branches, blue and red the deepest layers of all. From this depth, I can make out various offshoots and tunnels in the water surrounding us.
Lonan walks straight yellow without any hesitation. The gentle downward slope grows darker with every step, as we venture farther away from the shallow, sun-kissed water. I find myself holding every breath longer than I should, until I’m light-headed. It’s instinct, for one, being underwater, but the air-quality levels could also use some attention.
Or maybe this is how my next anxiety attack begins.
Soon, the tunnel opens up into an enormous space, and I guzzle fresh air by the lungful. Everything is bright yellow, a honeycomb sphere with oversized hexagons lining the walls, surrounding an atrium of vegetation. Sparkling ocean water shimmers above the panel at the top of the dome. All of this—it’s so much bigger than anything I expected to encounter down here. And there are five of these under the island? Blueprints are so very one-dimensional, is all I can think. My father’s work is an absolute masterpiece.
“This is the largest and most advanced aquaponics project on the planet.” Pellegrin says this loudly, as if it is for Dr. Marieke’s benefit, and not the directional cue I suspect it is. Lonan takes the hint and veers toward the floor of plants. Kale, chard, an entire rainbow of produce—the vegetables are actually growing out of fish tanks, from at least a hundred individual aquariums. I’m extremely tempted to pluck a meal for myself.
We do a complete tour of the floor before Pellegrin announces we’ll be making our way up to the honeycomb walls. “Once there are residents aboard, a three-step biosecurity system will grant access into their individual living spaces,” he says. If Zhornov has a problem with Pellegrin playing tour guide, he hasn’t silenced him yet. “For now, just use your imagination as the sensor authorizes us based simply on our presence at the door.”